I bought your books; therefore, I sort of paid this guy to re-gravel your driveway (unless this is coming out of Krissy’s money or Athena’s allowance). He’d better do a good job, and please remind him that I have very high standards and expectations when it comes to this sort of thing.

The thing is, I think your driveway is longer than the street I live on.

Still… How cool is it to see a big, honkin’ dump-truck in your drive, man?

Yeah, but did you ever wonder what happens to the old gravel? Where does it go? Evaporation? Sublimation. Gravel thieves? Personally, if my drive is any indicator, the gravel slowly escapes into the grass, heading slug-like for the woods.

And, Jeri, Scalzi makes his father in law mow the lawn, by hand, with fingernail clippers.

Growing up we had a gravel driveway on a hill – I distinctly remember being 5 years old, helping shovel gravel in a driving thunderstorm and carry it back up to the top of the hill so it wouldn’t all wash away in the rain. Those were the good ole days. Funny, I don’t recall ever getting a new load of gravel for it, though….

So does the second load go over the first? If they’re sequential, is there a rake or shovel involved to get a nice, seamless transition between load one and load two? Inquiring minds want to know.

We had a gravel thing going in our front garden for a while. We eventually figured out that ground cloth under the gravel kept it from getting weedy.ground in, but something tells me that wouldn’t be the best option for a driveway. Enjoy your oh-so-delightful new gravel.

Maybe not, but I have been on the wrong end of both shovel and rake re-graveling my parent’s driveway. This combined with the seemingly endless hours of picking up rocks from the back forty helped to form an early sense of irony.

There was a time I was waiting for 22 yards of gravel to be delivered for my driveway when a couple of Mormon missionaries showed up on my front porch. They had just started their pitch when the gravel truck pulled into the driveway, its big diesel engine roaring and the rocks loudly pouring out the back. They shouted above the noise that they would come back, but they never did.

I’ve had to do that as well, although usually we only get one load at a time. Also, I notice that they’re spreading it for you. I usually end up spending a couple of hours in cold wind raking it into place.

Granted, I live in New Mexico though, so I don’t have to worry about the riding lawnmower thing. Grass is rarely green out here.

Had to do it until two years ago, for a shared driveway. Lisa L is correct. You put the gravel down in, say, June, then in February a snow plow comes and pushes a substantial amount of it onto your devil’s strip (“tree lawn” for you non-northeast Ohioans who don’t talk English good). The remaining gravel gets mushed down over time by cars and rain and the GWOT. Worms probably drag some down, down to fashion wonderous worm cathedrals.

The next year (or two) you do it all over or your drive becomes a grooved path of compacted rock dust with a mohawk of weeds running up the middle. Looks real nice. But the gravel’s still cheaper than concrete!

The guy who owned our house before we did evidently redid one of the bathrooms at some point in the past. Every spring we have a bunch of 1″X1″ blue tiles come to the surface in our backyard. Would you like me to save them up toward the next graveling? They’d make a pretty accent, don’t you think?

The in laws have a 3 loads gravel driveway with s curves sitting on clay and under the clay is glacial till and volcanic ash & pumice deposits that gets annual frost heaves, -30C winter to 5C spring with rain; the bog down effect is about 3 feet deep which can eat your car.

The next year (or two) you do it all over or your drive becomes a grooved path of compacted rock dust with a mohawk of weeds running up the middle. Looks real nice. But the gravel’s still cheaper than concrete!

May be cheaper, but we were delighted when my parents blacktopped their driveway. Shoveling a gravel driveway is horrible–and since their driveway is pretty steep, it was kinda necessary.

I don’t have to do that. In fact, I get paid to load trucks with gravel. Except, not gravel so much as boulders, and not gravel trucks but rock trucks. I load them with a shovel but a big huge power shovel, not a hand shovel.

Dan prolly paid for three of those rocks so make sure they are in the right place.

Well, now that you bring it up, could you place those rocks of mine somewhere toward the middle of the driveway, John? Make sure they’re not too close to the road since I don’t want to be swept away by a snowplow, but I also don’t want to be too close to the house so as to impose on your life or anything. My stones aren’t rude, ya know.

Oh! And if you could find a spot in the shade, that would be choice. After all, I tend to burn if I’m left lying in the driveway all day.

So, remember: Not too close to the road. Not too close to the house, and preferably in the shade if possible.

More like Athena and her friends rampaging across the lawn. For it is the bounden duty of all nine year olds everywhere to create as much noise and havoc as possible so long as the sun shines and clouds drift by in the sky. It’s enough to wear out a border collie.

True, but in the part of Kentucky where my family lives, they and their neighbors (who are mostly just more family; hey it’s Kentucky) have to periodically pay some nice chap to regravel their roads. Just another perk of life in the holler!

And somebody bought you a couple of those rocks on my behalf, too, ’cause I found OMW and TGB under the Conspicuous Consumption Tree this year (and I have to say that while I haven’t read ‘em yet, because I’m saving them to savor some day when I’m snowed in and my snowblower has gone off skiing or something, I did what I always do in bookstores, which is read the back cover blurb, then flip open randomly and read a couple pages, two or three times, and this looks like it’s gonna be wicked good fun and I’m almost sorry I didn’t buy the hardcover when it came out, but I’m cheap. And broke.)